Spanish Course Descriptions: 2009/2010

To view course descriptions simply click on a course number or scroll down.
For classes with a language focus (101-311), see the UO class schedule.

Only courses with active links will be offered during the 2009/2010 academic year

 
 
 
SPAN 150
SPAN 150
SPAN 151
SPAN 151
SPAN 151
SPAN 315
SPAN 315
SPAN 315
SPAN 316
SPAN 317
SPAN 317
SPAN 328
SPAN 330
SPAN 331
SPAN 331
SPAN 333
SPAN 361
SPAN 361
SPAN 361
SPAN 363
SPAN 363
SPAN 363
SPAN 399
SPAN 399
SPAN 399
SPAN 410/510
SPAN 410/510
SPAN 410/510
SPAN 417/517
SPAN 417/517
SPAN 417/517
SPAN 420/520
SPAN 420/520
SPAN 425/525
SPAN 425/525
SPAN 436/536
SPAN 436/536
SPAN 436/536
SPAN 437/537
SPAN 437/537
SPAN 438
SPAN 438
SPAN 438
SPAN 450/550
SPAN 450/550
SPAN 450/550
SPAN 451/551
SPAN 451/551
SPAN 452/552
SPAN 452/552
SPAN 460
SPAN 460
SPAN 466/566
SPAN 466/566
SPAN 480/580
SPAN 480/580
SPAN 481/581
SPAN 481/581
SPAN 481/581
SPAN 490/590
SPAN 607
SPAN 666
SPAN 666
SPAN 666
SPAN 680
SPAN 680
SPAN 690
SPAN 690
 
 
 
RL 608
 
 
 
 

* There may be more than one course with this course number offered during the same term*
(ex: there are 5 different sections of SPAN 407 offered during the Fall 2009 term)

 

FALL 2009

SPAN 150: The Spanish-speaking world, Dialects of Spanish-- Davis
Spanish is the official language of Spain and over twenty American countries, and it is the de facto second language of the United States. Even those with a superficial knowledge of Spanish know that there are vast geographical and social differences in the language. In this class we will explore variation in the Spanish language, focusing on the historical sources of modern-day dialects, the lexical and grammatical features that distinguish them, the social factors that determine current usage, and the future of the language in the different contexts where it is used.   

Objectives: Students will be able to…
--identify places, peoples, historical, cultural and linguistic influences (geography linguistics interface)
--identify the phonetic, lexical, and syntactic features that distinguish major dialects of Spanish
--identify the linguistic and cultural stereotypes associated with English and Spanish dialects
--recognize their own visceral reactions to specific language features
--recognize the research faculty in the Spanish sector of Romance Languages, their countries of origin, and specialty areas     return to course list

SPAN 316: Survey of Peninsular Spanish Literature – Wacks
Introduction to major themes and ideas from the medieval period to 1800 through the reading of representative texts.     return to course list

 
SPAN 318: Survey in Spanish and American Literature—Powell
This course has three aims: 1) It introduces literature in Spanish (or Spanish translation) of indigenous cultures of Latin America, the Spanish conquest and colonization from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, and to the critical analysis of literature. Students develop skills for close reading in Spanish (for form and for content, learning to pick relevant details out of a text) and become familiar with vocabulary for literary analysis and criticism (major genres; imagery and figurative language; and other terms helpful in examining texts). 2) It relates literary texts to their historical, cultural, and social contexts. We uncover selected features of political and intellectual history, multicultural realities, and social conflicts, examining texts that (a) show the interrelatedness of orality and literariness; (b) reflect shifting hierarchies of cultures / ethnic groups and political power over the period; and (c) reveal matters of gender in literary expression, including power and disempowerment. We focus on themes of spiritual and political power, in multiple forms and occasions. This course also gives practice in effective “building-block” steps toward writing about literature, in Spanish, at an advanced undergraduate level.     return to course list
 

SPAN 319: Survey in Spanish/American Literature - Garcia Caro
Esta visión panorámica desde la independencia hasta nuestros días trata de reconocer y estudiar temas constantes de la literatura hispana contemporánea, como los conflictos sociales o la (inter)dependencia cultural entre centro y periferia, y pautas históricas, como la explotación social y económica en el continente y la problemática relación entre creador y sociedad, entre el texto y el tejido social. Las interpretaciones y discusiones de las diferentes lecturas de cada semana girarán en torno a estos temas amplios, y buscarán que el estudiante desarrolle al mismo tiempo una visión detallada tanto de las estrategias creativas, lingüísticas o textuales como del tejido social: el contexto histórico y geopolítico en el que surge cada texto.     return to course list

SPAN 320: Intensive Spanish Grammar Review – Murcia
Review and development of the more complex aspects of Spanish grammar with special attention to idiomatic usage.    return to course list

SPAN 328: Hispanic Literature in the United States – Epple
Introduction to Hispanic literature written in the United States. Close reading and discussion of selected texts by Hispanic authors. Emphasis on literary trends and themes.     return to course list

SPAN 333: Introduction to Spanish Narrative – Herrmann
Explores important aspects of Spanish narrative. Reading texts from different periods of Spanish and Spanish American literature. Emphasizes formal aspects and critical reading.     return to course list 

SPAN 407: Seminar: Historias/Historias Vitales—May
This seminar will expose the student to a rich array of masters of the short story from Spain as well as curious biographies collected by one of the country's most engaging contemporary novelists.     return to course list

SPAN 407: Gender, Ethnicity, and Food in Mexico - Taylor
In this course we will examine how the international movement for food sovereignty as it is articulated by Mexican intellectuals, activists and campesinos is transforming the politics of ethnic, gender and national identity. Food sovereignty is defined by the Vía Campesina as the organization of “food production and consumption according to the needs of local communities … [and] … includes the right to protect and regulate the national agricultural and livestock production and to shield the domestic market from the dumping of agricultural surpluses and low-price imports from other countries.” We will analyze how recent Mexican films and literary texts document and represent the clash between traditional small-scale farming practices and export-oriented agroindustrial production. Some of our objectives will include: understanding how the terms “peasant” and “Indian” have been discursively linked or severed depending on the political and economic agendas of local, national and international actors; articulating what is at stake for women, particularly indigenous women in the struggle for food sovereignty and finally, exploring how current cultural activism focused on food sovereignty relates to ongoing social movements in Mexico and the rest of the world.     return to course list

SPAN 409: Practicum: Supervised Internship – TBD
No description available.    return to course list

SPAN 451/551: Sor Juana and Her Contexts—Powell
Drawing on a variety of disciplines, this course develops skills in close reading of poems and prose by the 17th-century Mexican nun, together with study of colonial Spanish-American contexts crucial to this writer/intellectual who boldly inserted herself and her writings in masculinist tradition. We investigate literary contexts through conventional forms, tropes, and imagery of Renaissance and Baroque lyric and epistolary discourse; and through the irony, satire, burlesque, and parody by which Sor Juana (and other women writers) critiqued ideological and social paradigms excluding women from intellectual life (as more broadly, from agency in social relations with men). Related critical, historical, and theoretical readings explore her biography, historical and cultural contexts, and the religious-intellectual framework of her place and period. (Course taught in Spanish.)     return to course list
 

SPAN 460: DON QUIJOTE  - Verano 
A careful reading of DON QUIJOTE in Spanish, along with discussion of major critical topics and of the book's place and importance in literary history. Attention is also given to the book's relation to the historical background of Imperial Spain.     return to course list

SPAN490: 20th Century Chilean Literature - Garcia-Caro
This seminar explores the often ambivalent attitudes toward the nation and its traditions in Chilean writing throughout the Twentieth Century. Patria and pueblo are two concepts that could be used to characterize the two ideological camps of the Chilean political spectrum. Throughout the 20th Century, Chilean writers have struggled with the concept of nation and the social fractures of the patria. Students will be exposed to a selection of texts ranging from the early naturalist short-story writers of the turn of the century, Baldomero Lillo, Huidobro’s avant-garde poetics of creacionismo in Altazor o el viaje en paracaídas (1919), Neruda’s Canto General (1950), Parra’s antipoemas, and Donoso’s critique of patriarchal identity in El lugar sin límites (1965). A second part of the course will devote particular attention to the national crisis caused by neo-Fascism during and after the 1973 coup, when the opposition of nation versus people came fully to the foreground. We will look at issues such as the failed revolution, exile, and the search for restitution, and the ways in which contemporary writers Diamela Eltit, Por la patria (1986), Ariel Dorfman, La muerte y la doncella (1991), and Roberto Bolaño, Estrella distante (1996) have come to terms with the trauma of the dictatorship and its enforced gender and national identities.     return to course list

Spanish 607: Classics of Medieval Castilian Literature--Wacks
In this class we will read a number of the classical texts of medieval Castilian literature, all of which are represented on the reading list for the MA exam. Works will include the anonymous Cantar de Mío Cid, Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora, Alfonso X’s Estoria de España, Juan Manuel’s Conde Lucanor, Juan Ruiz’s Libro de buen amor, the Romancero viejo, Fernando de Rojas’ Celestina, and Garci Rodríguez Montalvo’s Amadís de Gaula. In addition to primary texts, students will read secondary texts to situate the works in their historical and theoretical contexts.     return to course list

SPAN 680: Women in 19th Century Latin American Novel-- Epple
En este seminario analizaremos la representación de la mujer como figura icónica y social en obras representativas del siglo XIX, como Saab, Sin rumbo, Aves sin nido, La charca, y Santa.     return to course list
 

SPAN 690: Latin American Cultural Studies – Taylor
In this course we will explore the conditions of possibility for the emergence of Latin American cultural studies, particularly in the past quarter century. Through our readings of critical essays, testimonios and documentary films, we will examine various intellectual currents and socio-historic contexts that have shaped Latin Americanism as a discourse of knowledge both from within and outside Latin America, focusing on how these approaches define culture and theorize its role in social formations and social conflicts. We will consider the kinds of relationships the field of cultural studies poses between the humanities and social sciences; between aesthetics and critical reason; and between its practitioners and their objects/subjects of study. Readings in English and Spanish; discussion in Spanish.     return to course list

 
RL 608: Second Language Teaching Methods – Davis 
This course is an introduction to the basic principles of second language acquisition and their application in classroom settings. Topics covered include instructional techniques for developing the three language modes (presentational, interpretive, interpersonal), standards for foreign language learning, proficiency assessment, content-based instruction (CBI), techniques for addressing learner variables, and the role of culture in the L2 classroom. In addition to the theoretical readings and discussions, students will develop a portfolio of teaching materials ready for classroom use. (All lectures and readings are in English; individual projects are prepared in your target language.)     return to course list

 

 

WINTER 2010

 

Winter 2010

SPAN 317: Survey of Peninsular Spanish Literature – DiGiovanni
Introduction to major themes and ideas from 1800 to the present through the reading of representative texts.     return to course list

SPAN 318: Survey of Spanish American Literature – Gladhart
Introduction to main currents and literary works in the colonial Spanish American period from a historical perspective. Critical readings of selected texts from colonial times.     return to course list

SPAN 319: Introduction to Latin American Literature - Taylor
Estudiaremos una selección de textos de la literatura hispanoamericana desde fines del siglo XIX hasta principios del siglo XXI. Proponemos que en América Latina las expresiones literarias modernas surgen en relación a los complejos conflictos sociohistóricas particulares a esta constelación de regiones geográficas. Al enfocarnos en distintos periodos y movimientos literarios, nos enfrentamos con la correspondencia inexacta entre la historia literaria latinoamericana y la de Europa o de los Estados Unidos. Veremos que los conceptos básicos de la historiografía literaria que tienen su orígen en Europa (por ejemplo, el romanticismo, el realismo, el naturalismo, el modernismo, el surrealismo, la vanguardia, la postmodernidad), cobran nuevo sentido y encuentran manifestaciones variadas en el contexto de los procesos históricos de colonización, descolonización (independencia) y neocolonización en America Latina. El crítico literario Angel Rama observa que la originalidad e independencia de la literatura latinoamericana deriva de una tensión entre la voluntad de escribir en un lenguaje orientado hacia Europa por un lado y la voluntad de forjar un lenguaje literario capáz de comunicar la realidad mestiza, indígena y afrodescendiente de las Américas por otro. Afirma que lo que le da su sello único a la literatura en América Latina es el equilibrio volátil entre estas tendencies opuestas. Algunos temas y conceptos útiles a nuestro estudio de la literatura latinoamericana “post-colonial” incluirán: la relación entre la producción literaria y la formación nacional; la idea del “canon” literario, su formación y desconstrucción; las relaciones entre el compromiso social y los imperativos estéticos; la articulación de las identidades regionales, nacionales, étnicas, de género sexual, de sexualidades y de clase. Finalmente, examinaremos la relacion entre las expresiones literarias como el testimonio y las literaturas indígenas y afrolatinoamericanas contemporáneas y los movimientos políticos y formaciones sociales de finales del siglo XX y principios del XXI.     return to course list

SPAN 320: Intensive Spanish Grammar Review – TBA
Review and development of the more complex aspects of Spanish grammar with special attention to idiomatic usage.    return to course list

SPAN 328: Hispanic Literature in the United States – Triana
Introduction to Hispanic literature written in the United States. Close reading and discussion of selected texts by Hispanic authors. Emphasis on literary trends and themes.     return to course list

SPAN 330: Introduction to Poetry-- Enjuto Rangel
En este curso estudiaremos la poesía en múltiples épocas y países, desde poemas náhuas y jarchas medievales hasta poemas barrocos, románticos y vanguardistas en España y América Latina. Estudiaremos cómo los textos literarios dialogan con sus contextos históricos y culturales. Nuestras discusiones también se concentrarán en el análisis formal y detallado de los poemas. En el transcurso del trimestre trabajaremos para lograr escribir ensayos bien estructurados y con lecturas críticas originales.     return to course list

SPAN 331: Introduction to Spanish Theater – Powell
Explores important aspects of Spanish theater. Reading plays from different periods of Spanish and Spanish American literature. Emphasizes formal aspects and critical reading.     return to course list

SPAN 407: Theater and Immigration-- Gladhart
This course will focus on Latin American plays that treat migration--both into and out of Latin America--from the early 20th through the early 21st century. Plays from Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, and the U.S. will allow us to discuss the theatrical representation of migration in the theaters of both "sending" and "receiving" countries. The course will be formatted as a workshop, one that will combine intensive reading of plays with performance and critical writing. Students will perform a short scene from one of the plays studied and write a substantial critical paper. The course will be divided roughly in thirds: the first third of the quarter we will focus on reading plays and choosing those texts to be performed and/or studied further; the second third of the course will focus on critical readings of the plays, incorporating theories of performance, immigration, and representation. The final third of the quarter will be devoted to polishing the performances of selected scenes and revising final papers. Playwrights studied may include Roberto Cossa, Hugo Salcedo, Griselda Gambaro, Sabina Berman, and Artístides Vargas.   The course will be conducted in Spanish, though a few readings may be in English or a combination of English and Spanish.     return to course list

SPAN 407: Love--Wacks
Love and sex were popular topics in pre-modern Spain, where authors took a variety of approaches to these subjects in several languages and genres before 1500. In this class we will read a variety of texts on love and sex including love poetry by men and women, treatises on courtly love, romance novels, sexual and gynecological manuals, and mystical writings on divine love.     return to course list

SPAN 407: Seminar: Novelista, Rosa Montero-- May
This seminar will be an in-depth examination of two novels by Rosa Montero, a foremost journalist and popular author whose writing career began around the time of dictator Francisco Franco’s death (1975) and continues richly to the present. Our analysis of her works will reflect the dynamic socio-historical context of contemporary Spain.     return to course list 

SPAN 407/507: Where is Macondo?-- Epple
El objetivo principal de este seminario es examinar la evolución literaria de Gabriel García Márquez, desde sus primeros relatos hasta sus novelas más destacadas. Las lecturas incluyen La hojarasca, El coronel no tiene quien le escriba, Cien años de soledad, El otoño del patriarca, Crónica de una muerte anunciada, Doce cuentos peregrinos, Memoria de mis putas tristes y un capitulo de sus memorias (tomo 1). Analizaremos el sentido estético y los procedimientos literarios del realismo mágico.     return to course list
 
SPAN 409: Practicum: Supervised Internship – TBD
No description available.    return to course list
 
SPAN 420/520: History of the Spanish Language - Davis
In this course we will outline of the linguistic changes and some of the accompanying social and historical influences on the development of the Spanish language: its roots in Popular Latin, its relationship to other Iberian Romance languages (Catalan, Portuguese), influences on the language during the periods of Visigothic and Arabic presence in the Iberian peninsula, and the expansion of Spanish after 1492. Finally, we will examine language contact phenomena (e.g. “Spanglish”) and survey the diversity of modern Spanish dialects of Spain and the Americas.
SPAN 420 satisfies the in-residence requirement of the Spanish major and minor.    
return to course list
 
SPAN 437/537: Avant-Garde Poetics-- Enjuto Rangel
En este curso analizaremos diferentes manifestaciones artísticas de las primeras tres décadas del siglo XX en España y América Latina. Estudiaremos en particular la poesía vanguardista latinoamericana y la Generación del 27, pero también discutiremos cómo el teatro, la pintura y el cine redefinen lo estéticamente “innovador” y su crítica socio-política. ¿Se puede hablar de una poética transatlántica vanguardista? ¿Cómo se leen los unos a los otros y porqué recuperan a poetas barrocos como Góngora y Quevedo? ¿Cómo podemos leer sus manifiestos artísticos y políticos? Nuestras discusiones se concentrarán en el análisis formal y detallado de los textos literarios, y cómo dialogan con sus contextos históricos y culturales. Analizaremos desde la obra poética de Huidobro, Gómez de la Serna, Machado, Jiménez, Mistral, Vallejo, Neruda, Lorca, Cernuda, Alberti, Méndez, Chacel, Palés Matos, Andrade, Storni, Burgos hasta Picasso, Dalí, Lam, Rivera, Kahlo y Buñuel.     return to course list

SPAN 452: Early Modern Hispanic Lyric Poetry (Spain and its colonies)-- Powell
This class investigates how the power and significance of lyric poetry grew and flourished in the early modern Hispanic world (“Renaissance” and “Baroque”, Spain and Latin America). We read cross-gender and cross-genre: that is, we will emphasize the ways that women poets “spoke” (or sang) out in poetic voice, while also reading the canonical male poets. In the context of traditions like petrarchism, courtly love, the querelle des femes (or debate on women), mystical poetry, the elegy, the self-portrait poem, and the poem of philosophical meditation, is lyric a male-dominated discourse? If so, how; and if not, what is it rather? To address these questions, we also read a variety of poetic forms and themes that circulated widely in the period.     return to course list

SPAN 466/566: Introduction to the Golden Age-- Middlebrook
This course examines the major poetic genres of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, focusing on the poetry composed in Peninsular Spain (although we will occasionally reach out to poetry composed in the Americas). Over the quarter, we will examine some of the lyrics of the Cancionero General (1511), then move through key writings by Juan Boscán, Garcilaso de la Vega, Gutierre de Cetina, Hernando de Acuña, Sta. Teresa,, Luis de Góngora, Francisco de Quevedo and María de Zayas (also keeping an eye out for important lyrics by another prolific writer, “Anonymous”). As we read and discuss, we will be setting sixteenth-century lyrics in two important contexts: the “lyricization” of poetry and the rise of prose. Graduate students will be expected to complete theoretical readings by John Beverley, Wlad Godzich and Jeffrey Kittay; Michel Foucault and Virginia Jackson, among others. In addition, graduate students are required to write a final paper of 15 pages. Undergraduate students will asked to complete a take-home final exam. All students will be required to participate in weekly Blackboard discussions, take the mid-term exam (Week 6), and complete a brief oral final exam, which consists of reciting a full poem or a significant portion of a poem (Week 10).     return to course list

RL 407/507: The Black Revolutionary Imagination in 20th Century Caribbean Literature-- Triana
In this course we will explore writings from revolutionary political and aesthetic movements in the 20th century Caribbean. We will read from a variety of genres, from poetry to political manifestos to history. Possible authors include: Nicolás Guillén, Aimé Césaire, Luisa Capetillo, C.L.R. James, Nancy Morejón, Roberto Fernández Retamar, Frantz Fanon, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Maryse Condé.
***Students may take this class to fulfill major/minor requirements in Spanish and French if reading and writing requirements in the target language are met. Consult with the professor.***     return to course list

RL 407/507: The Storyteller in a Multicultural Perspective- Gazzoni
This course will explore the art and the representation of storytelling as enacted in some fundamental narrative texts from multicultural contexts in Romance literatures over the second half of the 20th century. We will start with an attentive reading of W. Benjamin’s landmark essay “The Storyteller”, and then we will try to confront its assertions with the active presence of storytelling in novels by the Cuban Alejo Carpentier, the Peruvian José Maria Arguedas, the Martinican Édouard Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau, the Italo-Albanian (arbëreshe) Carmine Abate. We will discuss the way in which multicultural written narratives exalt the role of the storyteller in relation with his/her oral origins, as a weaver of collective memories of the past which are continually splitted, crossbred, and reinvented, in opposition to the linear and homogeneous models of memory and narration provided by the ruling discourses of Western culture.     return to course list

RL 620: Graduate Study in Romance Languages-- García-Pabón
This course is an introduction to purposes, problems, and methods of graduate study in Romance languages. The course will discuss research strategies for diverse literary genres, different historical periods, and specific geographical locations in the RL speaking countries (for example: the study of a medieval text; what specific problems a 19th century nation-building novel poses in Latin America and/or Africa). It will also introduce students to the prevalent theories about literary and cultural production.  Specialist in the diverse areas of research will participate in the course.     return to course list

 

SPRING 2010

SPAN 316: Survey of Peninsular Spanish Literature--Powell
This course has three aims: 1) It introduces peninsular Spanish literature of the twelfth through seventeenth centuries, and the critical analysis of literature. Students develop skills for close reading in Spanish (reading for form and for content, learning to pick relevant details out of a text) and become familiar with basic vocabulary for literary analysis and criticism (major genres; imagery and figurative language used in literary works; and other terms helpful in examining texts). 2) It introduces key features of the “Middle Ages” and the “early modern” (also known as “Renaissance” and “Baroque”) periods, by relating literary texts to theif historical, cultural, and social contexts, uncovering selected features of political and intellectual history, multicultural realities, and social conflicts. We do this by examining texts that (a) illuminate the interrelatedness of orality and literariness; (b) reflect the “convivencia” and shifting hierarchies of cultures / ethnic groups and political power over the period; (c) reveal matters of gender in literary expression, including power and disempowerment. We examine the theme of love, in multiple forms and occasions. 3) This course gives practice in effective “building-block” steps toward writing about literature, in Spanish, at an advanced undergraduate level.     return to course list
 
SPAN 318: Survey in Spanish and American Literature—Powell
This course has three aims: 1) It introduces literature in Spanish (or Spanish translation) of indigenous cultures of Latin America, the Spanish conquest and colonization from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, and to the critical analysis of literature. Students develop skills for close reading in Spanish (for form and for content, learning to pick relevant details out of a text) and become familiar with vocabulary for literary analysis and criticism (major genres; imagery and figurative language; and other terms helpful in examining texts). 2) It relates literary texts to their historical, cultural, and social contexts. We uncover selected features of political and intellectual history, multicultural realities, and social conflicts, examining texts that (a) show the interrelatedness of orality and literariness; (b) reflect shifting hierarchies of cultures / ethnic groups and political power over the period; and (c) reveal matters of gender in literary expression, including power and disempowerment. We focus on themes of spiritual and political power, in multiple forms and occasions. This course also gives practice in effective “building-block” steps toward writing about literature, in Spanish, at an advanced undergraduate level.     return to course list
 

SPAN 319: Survey of Spanish American Literature – Triana
Introduction to basic currents and movements in contemporary Spanish American literature from a historical perspective. Critical readings of selected poems, short fiction, and plays.     return to course list

SPAN 320: Intensive Spanish Grammar Review – TBA
Review and development of the more complex aspects of Spanish grammar with special attention to idiomatic usage.    return to course list
 

SPAN 330: Introduction to Poetry-- Enjuto Rangel
En este curso estudiaremos la poesía en múltiples épocas y países, desde poemas náhuas y jarchas medievales hasta poemas barrocos, románticos y vanguardistas en España y América Latina. Estudiaremos cómo los textos literarios dialogan con sus contextos históricos y culturales. Nuestras discusiones también se concentrarán en el análisis formal y detallado de los poemas. En el transcurso del trimestre trabajaremos para lograr escribir ensayos bien estructurados y con lecturas críticas originales.     return to course list

SPAN 333: Introduction to Spanish Narrative – Epple
Explores important aspects of Spanish narrative. Reading texts from different periods of Spanish and Spanish American literature. Emphasizes formal aspects and critical reading.     return to course list

SPAN 407: Spain and Islam--Wacks
Spain’s relationship with Islam is extremely important to the development of Spanish and Hispanic culture. Much of we think of as typically “Spanish” has its roots in Islam and in the tension between Christianity and Islam that came to define Spain. For centuries, the Iberian Peninsula (today Spain and Portugal) was a Muslim country, called al-Andalus, where a uniquely sophisticated and luxurious culture flourished when the rest of Europe was living in relative poverty and ignorance. Although the Muslim political presence in Spain came to an end in 1492 with the defeat of the Kingdom of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand, the last Muslims did not leave Spain until 1614.
Today, massive immigration from North Africa has reintroduced Islam to Spain, and the future of the country will be determined in part by how modern Spaniards choose to deal with the challenges of religious and ethnic plurality this time around. In this course we will learn about the development of Islamic culture in Spain, the transition to Christian political dominance and eventual elimination of Islam, and the current debate in Spain over North African immigration. Texts will include selections of medieval Hispano-Arabic poetry and prose, selections from the aljamiado literature of the Moriscos, the last Spanish Muslims (1500-1600s), a scholarly essay on the history of Arabic studies in Spain, contemporary Spanish fiction on the theme of African immigration, and contemporary essays on both historical and current questions of the integration of Islam and Muslims in Spanish society.     return to course list

SPAN 407: Children and the Street in Latin America - Taylor
return to course list

SPAN 409: Practicum: Supervised Internship – TBD
No description available.    return to course list
 

SPAN 425/525: Translation: Literature and Cultures, Theory and Practice-- Powell
This seminar-workshop gives practical experience in the craft and the art of literary translation. Theoretical readings illuminate the pragmatic challenges encountered in our practice exercises and activities. We examine differing approaches to issues including linguistic problems of synonymy and dissimilarity; critiques of the "transculturation" of gender, social class, and political geography; the Euro-American history of translation & of translation theory, in its colonialistic and liberatory aspects; translation as close critical reading; questions of narrative and poetic translation; and the creative uses writers and poets have made of translation in English/American, and Spanish peninsular/Latin American traditions. In the individual translation projects, we apply our own creativity and insights, working independently and collaboratively, to these challenges.     return to course list

 
 
SPAN 480/580: 19th C Hispanic Short Story-- Epple
Este seminario se enfocará en un análisis comparativo de relatos de escritores españoles y latinoamericanos, tanto del romanticismo, el realismo/naturalismo como del modernismo. El programa incluye relatos representativos de Mariano José de Larrra, Esteban Echavarría, Pedro Antonio Alarcón, Laopoldo Alas, Ricardo Palma, Manuela Gorriti, Benito Pérez Galdós, Eduardo Acevedo Díaz, Javier de Viana, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Rubén Darío, Augusto H’Halmar y Horacio Quiroga.     return to course list
 
SPAN 490: José Martí-- Triana
En este curso leeremos una pequeña parte del prolífico corpus literario de José Martí (1853-1895). Estudiaremos la evolución del pensamiento martiano en relación al modernismo literario, el nacionalismo cubano, públicos lectores latinoamericanos, el capitalismo monopolístico, el imperialismo, el exilio, los estudios hemisféricos, género, sexualidad y raza. Las lecturas incluyen: El presidio político en Cuba; poesía de Ismaelillo y Versos sencillos; cuentos de La Edad de Oro; periodismo de Patria; los ensayos “Nuestra América,” “La verdad sobre los Estados Unidos,” “Mi raza,” “Vindicación de Cuba,” “Un drama terrible;” sus ensayos sobre Whitman y Emerson Wilde; y “Manifiesto de Montecristi.”     return to course list
 

SPAN 490/590: Latin American Testimonials - Taylor
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SPAN 607: Desire in 19th Century Literature-- Enjuto Rangel
En este curso analizaremos la representación del deseo en el siglo diecinueve en la narrativa y la poesía de España y América Latina. ¿Cómo es que los escritores y las escritoras representan, idealizan, o parodian el deseo femenino y masculino? ¿Cómo es que las tensiones sexuales, raciales y de clases sociales determinan la construcción del deseo? Discutiremos textos teóricos y de crítica literaria en conexión con la obra de José María Heredia, José de Espronceda, Carolina Coronado, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Cirilo Villaverde, Juana Manuela Gorriti, Clorinda Matto de Turner, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Rosalía de Castro, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Clarín y Benito Pérez Galdós, entre otros escritores.     return to course list
 

RL 607: Masterworks of Spanish Cinema—Gina Herrmann
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RL 623: Humanism: The Culture of the Book and the Post Human Age—Lollini/Middlebrook
Both the syllabus of readings for this course and a roster of invited speakers will help us explore the multiple meanings of humanism in the Early Modern, the modern, the post-modern and finally the so-called post-human age. From the period of the European Renaissance deep into the twentieth century, “humanism” was a notion that was intimately founded on an idea of writing and reading. The predominant received, rather oversimplified, view of European Renaissance Humanism is that it positioned man at the center of a nature which he mastered by means of his God-given powers of reason. In this course we will be taking up key Renaissance and Early Modern texts in order to show that intrinsically, this mastery was associated first with manuscript culture and then with the culture of the book. Consciously and unconsciously, the book-centered view has continued to shape assumptions about the meaning of the word “human” and its derivatives. However, in the current, globalized age, in which science and technology have made inroads into the territory of letters and the book, transforming relationships between the human and the non-human, the natural and the synthetic, the word, the image and the algorithm, we need to reconsider what humanism means. Thus the second part of this course will unfold under the rubric of Donna Haraway’s “ironic dream,” as
told in “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1991), the most relevant posthuman manifesto to date.     return to course list